Then I slam the door shut behind me.
Chapter 22: Mae
Two weeks later...
I’m nervous. So damn nervous.
My stomach twists as I stand outside the concert stadium in Nashville, the massive venue already pulsing with the energy of thousands of country music fans waiting for Cody to take the stage. The opening bands have already started, their music vibrating through the pavement beneath my feet, but I can’t focus on any of it.
Because Georgia is on her way.
Her flight landed from North Carolina where she lives an hour ago, and now she’s meeting me here with the results of the DNA test—the test she had done after discreetly securing a sample of Cody’s twin brother, Wilder’s, DNA and sending it off to a lab along with Elsie’s.
I tap my foot anxiously, my arms wrapped around myself despite the warm Tennessee night. My mind is a mess, my heart caught somewhere between dread and hope, between fear and relief, between the desperate need to know the truth and the terrifying weight of what that truth might mean for my life.
Thankfully, Georgia managed to secure VIP tickets from Cody’s manager without him knowing I’d be here tonight. I don’t even know if he’d want to see me. Not after how things ended the lasttime that I saw him. Not after the way I know I broke his heart.
The thought is enough to make my own chest ache, my pulse hammering against my ribs as I glance toward the entrance, watching the steady stream of fans file inside, buzzing with excitement, wearing Cody’s merch, carrying signs that profess their love to him, ready to lose themselves in his music.
I’ve seen every photo, every video, every snippet of his concerts over the past two weeks. He’s still Cody—ever the professional, putting on one hell of a show, performing with a fire that draws people in. But I can hear it in his voice.
There’s a sadness there.
A rawness, an ache that wasn’t there before.
Some critics have praised this tour as his most emotionally charged yet, claiming they’ve never heard him sing with such conviction, never felt his lyrics cut so deep. But I know the truth. I know what’s behind that ache.
And I hate that I might be the reason for it.
I hadn’t meant for it to get to this point. I hadn’t meant to break things off the way I did. But at the time, it felt like the only option—the only way to give myself space to figure things out, to get the answers I needed before dragging Cody into something that could turn his whole world upside down.
Because if he is the father…
God, I don’t even know what that means for us.
I don’t know how he’ll take the news, what it’ll do to him, to his career, to our already fragile relationship.
And if he isn’t?
I swallow hard, staring down at my phone, waiting for Georgia’s name to flash across the screen, waiting for the moment my life could change forever.
“I’m so sorry I’m late!” Georgia shouts, waddling towards mefrom the sidewalk, noticeably more pregnant than when I saw her a few short weeks ago.
“No problem,” I say nervously as she reaches into her back pocket and hands me a piece of paper.
“You want to open it before the concert or after?”
“Now. I need to know now,” I say with a firm head shake.
She nods and watches as I tear into it, my eyes scanning the sheet until they finally land on the results.
“Oh my God, Georgia.”
“What is it?” she asks nervously.
“Cody is Elsie’s biological father,” I whisper.
Georgia gasps, then grips my waist, pulling me in for a hug as we hold each other in stunned silence.
